


lycanthropy

by BlackJacketsandPens



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Eye Trauma, Gen, Gore, Suicidal Thoughts, as he falls into a hole and then starts climbing back up, be advised this is not a fun ride, dima and the no good very bad five years, or: 12k words of exploring one very sad man's psychological state, there will be trigger warnings, this wasn't meant to be this long and yet, whoopsie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 03:11:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20923223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackJacketsandPens/pseuds/BlackJacketsandPens
Summary: Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.A man may turn into a beast, through no fault of his own, forge a trail of blood and death in the wake of his pain and for the ghosts at his heels--- but that is not to say that he may never again become human.(TW for: gore, eye trauma, suicidal thoughts)





	lycanthropy

He tries, at first. He tries. It’s hard, with the headaches and ghosts and nightmares, with Dedue’s sacrifice weighing his shoulders down with the weight of another life lost because of him, but he tries. The Fhirdiad slums are--- they are horrible, horrifying, and he cannot imagine how it’s possible even after they were cleaned and the plague cured, but...but...he has not been here. He has not seen. How could he truly know? And with Cornelia, the Empire now in charge...the slums rot, and he is there to see it.

He hides away, he tries so hard, curled shaking in a rickety shack, trembling and still in the stolen armor stained with the blood of Kingdom soldiers. He can’t recall how many days he spends there, but then the door opens and another soldier is there, and he cannot recall the tone of voice used when he says _Your Highness_ \--- relief or anger, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know --- and stolen sword is in his hand and through the man’s chest to the hilt, and more blood splatters on him and he wants to be sick, his hands shake and the ghosts howl, but he can’t. He can’t be caught, he can’t. He has to survive. For Dedue, for the ghosts, for--- for his revenge. To kill her, he has to kill her. But how? She is in Enbarr, he is here. He has to...he has to find a way there, doesn’t he? But how? He shakes it off. No, now he...now he has to_ survive_. Survive first, and then hunt her down.

He creeps out from his hiding place after that--- he has to survive, and hiding accomplishes nothing. But he doesn’t know how. He is a spoiled princeling, he knows that, but he has to survive. And he will, he knows he will, and he already hates himself for what he’s going to have to do. 

He’s right. To steal, to fight, to kill for scraps of meat or fruit dropped from merchants’ stalls--- he hates it. To snap a ten year old boy’s wrist so he can get to an apple quicker, to snatch half a loaf of stale moldy bread out of the hands of the man whose neck he just broke...all that and more, all that and worse. He does what he has to, and each time he does it he feels himself slipping further into an abyss, the beast Felix had always accused him of being, and--- each fumbling step downwards he tells himself it’s what he deserves. If he must do these things just to survive, then he is a beast, and all a beast deserves is to_ be_ a beast. There is no way back up for him, so there is no other choice but to fall all the way down. The ghosts--- the ghosts don’t care what he does, do they, so long as he gives his life for them. It does not matter to them whether a man or a monster gets them their justice, so long as it is given. So what then is the point of trying otherwise? 

He throws himself into monstrosity then, knowing there is nothing left for him as a man, and the bloodstains on his hands grow deeper. He kills, anyone in his way, anything to get a scrap of food, a warm place to sleep. Men, women, children, it doesn’t matter. He gets what he needs any way he needs to get it. One night in winter he sells his own body to a scarred and angry Duscur refugee in exchange for shelter, and every part of him hurts for three days, but he doesn’t care. He does it again and again, whatever he must, and it hurts and the bruises linger but he doesn’t care. He is already stained with blood, filthy and monstrous, so why should he care how much he debases himself, taints himself? Nothing matters but getting justice for the ghosts who scream in his ear. He is just a tool for their vengeance, and what condition he is in does not matter.

But this cannot last, and he pretended not to know it, weak as he still is. Imperial troops are more and more common even in the slums, and one of them will see him soon enough, see and know him. One does, and he flees--- something hot and bright is burning in his chest, and it is not a flight out of fear. No, his head pounds with the same sort of vicious rage that he’s so familiar with, and her face, that mask, is over all their helmets. He runs into the forest and they follow, and they do not expect him to stop. But he does, and plants his feet and roars in their faces, and it startles them enough that he can throw himself at the first one, hands wrapping around his neck and twisting it, and he falls like a broken doll to the ground, head turned all the way around. The other soldiers try to flee, but even if he is not fast he is still faster than them, and he grabs one by the back of his head and squeezes until he feels steel give beneath his fingers, until he feels flesh and blood and bone and something wet and squelching, and he lets the ruined mess drip from his hand as he turns on the remaining two. The next one he tackles to the ground, struggle ending when he sinks teeth into the man’s neck and thick hot blood splatters his face, and he spits it out and turns on the final one, stalking towards him with no thought in his head but death. Blood that isn’t his drips down his face, and he feels his lips tugging into a wild grin, but it does not register, as he plunges his hand into the soldier’s chest until he feels wet, slick organs, and he doesn’t care what he grabs but he grabs it and rips it out, and he realizes the ghosts have gone silent. They are still there, he knows it, but they’re quiet, and almost approving, and---

This is it? This is what they want? This is what pleases them, this is their vengeance? It--- he--- this is what they want from him?

The flame in his chest gutters and he retches, fleeing deeper into the woods until he finds a river, and he tips forward into it half hoping to drown, feeling the blood on his face and the guts and offal in his hands even as the water washes it away. He crawls out eventually and curls up, retching again, and now the ghosts speak again, berating him, calling him a coward, weak, worthless. Kill them, kill them all, kill them and get us justice. They stand over him, judging, and it is as if they want him to be a monster, a beast, want him to crawl in the blood and gore until nothing is left so long as they get what they want. A small part of him whispers in a voice he isn’t sure he will hear again, a young woman’s voice echoing from one late night in a church --- _ I would never want someone whom I care deeply for to be pained by the loss of me for eternity... surely anyone who loved another would wish only for their peace and happiness._ \--- and that small part of him begs him to stop, stop, before it’s too late. But it is too small, too weak, and he knows he doesn’t deserve that. He shouldn’t have survived. He shouldn’t be here. He should never have been here. That he is is a crime, that he alone survived that day is a crime, and the only way to atone for it is to give the ghosts their due. And if the ghosts wish him to drown in blood, he cannot argue. His life, his soul, it belongs to them. He has no say. He is only alive because he must give them what they want, that is the only reason he has let himself keep breathing. He has no choice in the matter, he never has and never will. He lives for them, and he will die for them.

He wanders the forests then, for...he doesn’t know. It all looks the same, and he doesn’t know where he is. All the forests of Faerghus look the same to him, and he doesn’t care anyway. He finds a town to stumble into, one night, and there are Kingdom soldiers there--- he doesn’t see them, just their horses, and without thinking clearly he snatches a banner from their gear and slips away with it, wrapping it around his shoulders like a cloak. It’s a joke, he thinks, almost funny. He should be king, but here he is, an animal with his own kingdom’s banner draped around him as if it could keep the chill away. He can never be king, will never be king. He knows that. He will die before he is crowned and that is fine, because a beast does not deserve to sit on a throne. It should not sully that spot where his father once sat, proud and gleaming. No, that is not his place. He is meant for the dirt and the blood and to die drenched in gore with that woman’s throat in his teeth. And that is alright with him. It must be.

Days blur and run together, and he survives. He sneaks into a town one night, and he does not know what he steals from a market stall, but it is a fruit of some kind--- and then it isn’t, when he bites into it, it is flesh and he cannot taste but he recalls the taste of blood, hot and thick and coppery, from Duscur and that fills his mouth now as he sinks his teeth into something’s still beating heart and he screams aloud and flings it from him, spitting and coughing and retching. It may be a fruit again if he searches for it but he cannot bring himself to. He cannot eat anything at all for two days, after that, and it only seems to worsen from there. He reaches for a fruit and it turns into bloody flesh in his hand, he trips over a tree root and when he turns it is human bones, gleaming white and accusing, the thin white stalks of mushrooms poking from the ground are hands bursting from the soil, grabbing for his legs to drag him into the grave. He sees death everywhere he goes, everywhere he turns, his ghosts scream louder and louder into his ears the longer he wanders without killing...his head pounds like someone’s taking a hammer to it, slow and steady, a rhythmic thump-thump-thump against his right temple. He tries to focus on that sensation, on his stomach roiling with hunger, on anything but the ghosts, but he can’t--- they are too close, right in his ears, and he drops to his knees, fingers digging into his temples. Stop, he screams at them, stop, stop, stop. But they don’t listen, don’t stop, and he digs harder, pressing as hard as he can into his flesh in the hopes that it will stop, or he can focus on something else--- and then his face explodes as if Ailell itself had opened up upon it.

He screams, an animal howl that sends birds fleeing from their nests, and he feels something his right hand, where his face burns, and he drops his hands to look and stares. Stares at the eye sitting in his palm, bloody and wet and disgusting, his own eye, blood still pouring out of the socket, his strength having torn it clean out, it--- he--- he screams again, and then breaks down into laughter, high and wild, and his hand snaps shut and he feels the thing squish in his hand like an overripe fruit, more blood and other unnamed fluid leaking through his fingers, and he retches, stumbling forward, his face burning white-hot with agony. He finds a stream eventually, stumbling upstream until he hits a cliff, a cave, and he buries his face in the water, screaming again as it burns the empty socket. 

Even like this, he knows something must be done, because he cannot_ die_, not until he kills her, so he stumbles into the cave, and--- he cannot remember finding wood for a fire nor can he recall starting it, but it is there, and he stares at it, seeing only death in the flames, before his fingers scrabble uselessly at his belt until they find a dagger, his dagger, the dagger, _her_ dagger, and he draws it. A brief, thrilling moment hangs in the air where he contemplates how easy it would be to plunge it into his own throat and end it all, but he doesn’t. He has to survive, and he will only die when the ghosts tell him to, when it is over. Monster that he is and will be at the end, he won’t be suffered to live. And he’ll accept that gladly. But right now he sticks the pommel of the dagger in the flames, leaving it there until his fingers numb and the metal glows, and then he tugs his belt off with his other hand to bite down hard on it as he presses the red-hot pommel to his face, to his ruined eye. He is no healer, but in his hazy memories he remembers a passage in a book about cauterizing wounds, and--- this is the best he can do.

If he thought before Ailell had exploded upon his face, he had been wrong--- this was Ailell, all the lava it poured from the earth drowning the side of his face and ripping another scream from him, tearing at his throat and making him howl until the dagger slips from nerveless fingers and he falls with it, curling up beneath the ragged banner he still wears as a cloak (he’d stolen needle and thread from a town some indeterminate amount of time back, killed an angry wolf out for his throat, sewn its dried pelt to the thing to keep him warm...Mercedes would be disappointed in how badly it turned out, but--- he won’t see her again, so he won’t ever be scolded for it, and what does it matter anyway). The pain is too much and it steals his consciousness, and he will never know how long he stayed in that cave, trembling with the pain and the fever. Years down the line, when he is himself again, he will be aware that it is only his Crest that saved him then, the same blood that gave him his strength giving him a monstrous constitution that protected him from the worst of infection, let him survive the ravages to his body through all that time. But for now he knows nothing, just shakes and cries and fights off nightmares as he heals.

He staggers out of the cave eventually, continuing to stumble and wander through the woods. The ghosts still linger in his periphery, half his vision blocked so now they always stand to his left, always make sure he can see them, but death doesn’t follow him so much now. He still sees bones and blood and flesh among the woods, taunting him, feels fire against the blinded side of his face (he ripped up his tunic to tie around it, but he’ll steal something better from the next town he finds), but not quite so often anymore. Enough that he can force himself to eat, which is...better. A half-remembered voice, deep and soft and one he will never hear again among the living, warns him--- _the white mushrooms will kill you, Your Highness, never eat those; and the brightly colored ones are like that as a warning. _He recalls the warning, and he tries to abide by it. Tries to recall the ones he’d seen in the dining hall, but it is hard. Those memories are difficult to grasp, like wading through thick mud, and his thoughts are slow and syrupy. But he attempts it all the same, if just to survive. Just to live long enough to kill her and quiet the ghosts, placate the spirits that haunt him.

He doesn’t do a good job of it, all the same. Even if he recalls enough to know what will kill him, enough to at least dunk the mushrooms and roots he pulls up in streams before he eats them, even so...even so. His stomach constantly roils, protesting and unhappy, his head pounds with dizziness, and he feels sick. But he survives. He tries to recall what he ate that made him ill, and only half the time he’s successful. It’s hard to concentrate much of the time, and sometimes he has so many bad days where everything looks like death to him that by the time he sees a mushroom or fruit that looks like what it truly is he shoves it in his mouth with a desperation that blinds him to its safety or lack thereof. It keeps him alive, and it doesn’t kill him, though--- that’s all that matters.

He sees a rabbit, once, after three full days of everything he sees looking like bones and human flesh and he’s so mad with hunger he pounces on it before he can think, snapping its neck and barely having the forethought to strip it of its fur before he devours it. He doesn’t taste the blood this time, doesn’t taste it at all, but that’s good--- that’s good, and it’s the best thing he’s eaten in--- he doesn’t know anymore. A long time. It makes him sick for two more days, though, and the next time he’s desperate enough to hunt --- a deer this time, a young deer that he tackles to the ground and bites its throat out, dragging it to somewhere safer to eat --- he remembers to at least try to cook it first. It takes time and a lot more days lost to illness and retching before he finally manages to figure out how long to leave the meat on the fire for, and even then, he’s not sure he ever does it right. But he’s only sick for a _little_, now, so that is enough. So long as he can keep going it doesn’t matter how nauseous and shaky he is, and _a little sick_ becomes his new normal. He truly is an animal now, he thinks, a beast tearing the heads off rabbits and deer and wild pigs, snapping the necks of wild pheasants and ducks, snatching fish out of the river like a bear...he even vaguely recalls taking down a moose once, near the mountains. A week of being unable to eat had pushed him to it, and it had nearly gutted him, breaking two ribs and making it hard to breathe for days, but he’d done it. Decided never again, after the meat went bad and made him sick because there was too much of it, but...he had done it, and perhaps that was when he knew he was never going to be human again.

It was freeing, in a terrible sort of way, to know he was too far gone to be saved. Why bother with anything now? Nothing now mattered but his vengeance --- and it wasn’t even his, it was his ghosts’, because nothing of him was important; he was just a tool in the physical realm for the ghosts to get their justice through --- and to get it he had become a true beast. But it didn’t matter. What he was didn’t matter, no matter how tempting it was sometimes to just stop eating, to put the dagger he still clung to through his throat or his heart, to throw himself off a cliff or drown himself in a river--- no, no matter how much he hated what he had become, no matter how thick the blood on his hands became, it didn’t matter anymore. So long as he did his duty to the ghosts...this is what he would be. He didn’t deserve anything else. Part of him, some small distant part of him nearly inaudible through the thick syrup of his thoughts and the clamor of the ghosts, knew it was a vicious cycle he’d thrown himself into--- he didn’t deserve anything else, so he would be a beast, and in becoming a beast he deserved even less. But none of that mattered. Why would it matter? He didn’t matter. He was nothing but a wild boar, an animal, seeking revenge for his masters, the ghosts always at his ear. And he would get it. No matter what depths he had to sink to, he would get it. That was the only reason he drew breath. And after her skull shattered in his hands, after her heart was in his teeth, then--- then he could die. He’d deserve it, after all. He would die willingly, a beast put down like it should be, once he had given the ghosts peace. 

But in the meantime, he would live like this. Bury himself in blood and filth, become the monster he truly was. Why did it matter otherwise? The voices in his head demanded it, his ghosts required it, and that was the only thing that did matter. Anything else, any other voice, familiar whispers urging him to let go and let himself be happy, gentle voices, worried faces, kind smiles--- they were buried deep, too deep to hear. If anyone else spoke to him, it was an echoing sneer of_ I was right, you really are a wild boar_ that bounced around his head--- and he knew the owner of that voice would run him through one day for it. He had never said as much, but it felt like a promise, and a promise he’d keep. And he looked forward to it. It was only fair, if it was him who put him down in the end. They had been born for each other, after all. It was only right that he be the one to kill him...it felt like the only possible end to this. Either she killed him and he failed, or he tore her throat out and allowed his life to be taken by the boy he had known since birth. That...that was only right. 

He slips through towns every so often, stealing bandages or clothing --- he is wounded a lot, from hunting or by his own hands, and clothes do not last long when he coats them in blood and gore and filth by the day --- and it’s only because of that he notices when the men in red armor begin appearing more and more often. Imperials. The beast in him roars, slavers for their blood when he sees them, and his hunt changes targets. No longer is he a wild animal hunting to survive--- he is a predator, and his prey is those fools and demons in red that answer to his target, his enemy, the woman he will devour whole. He does not attack them in towns, no, but he waits for them to set forth and then strikes. Quick like a wolf, heavy and vicious as a bear, charging with all the mad ferocity of the wild boar that he is, he leaps upon them. Horses and man alike are no match for his strength and his violence, fingers ripping metal apart and digging into flesh, teeth burying into necks and tearing out throats, hands tearing out hearts and guts and spraying blood across the forest floor. He roars and snarls and howls like the beast he is, crushing skulls and tearing limbs off, until he leaves behind him an abattoir staining trees crimson and letting the scavengers pick through the corpses.

His wounds grow more varied, swords and axes, lances and magic and arrows, and he bandages them all haphazardly, watching the scars decorate his skin. He is ugly, he knows he is now, as hideous a monster outside as he is within--- scarred and torn apart, no inch of his body free of damage he’d done to it, his face ruined, a black patch hiding the wreckage of his right eye...he does not think he’d recognize himself if he saw his reflection. Memory supplies him what he looked like last, small and young and trying to smile, a golden boy, a handsome prince charming trying to pretend there were no ghosts at his heels...and if that boy were in front of him now he’d scream at him and tear him apart, too. That boy is dead, long dead, eaten up by the monster in his skin, and that is all that remains. 

He slips through a bigger town than normal one day, near the foot of the mountains, hearing whispers of a monster in the woods eating soldiers, and he tries not to laugh. Yes, there is a monster. He is the monster. There are beasties in the woods, and on your streets, and in your homes, and he is the monster that devours the monsters. The weak are meat to them all, and he is the only one who eats those who eat the weak. It is for revenge, all for his ghosts--- each soldier dead is another hour or two where they stand silent and approve, and he bathes in the blood he sheds for that silence. Because someone has to. It is his job, his duty, to kill them all. The ghosts approve of him killing these filthy rats--- bandits, soldiers, anyone in red, anyone who tramples the weak like they were nothing. They approve, he can tell, so he does it. Is it his revenge? He doesn’t know, but if it makes the ghosts proud of him he’ll kill anyone they ask. That’s all that matters. Killing those who harm the weak, killing anyone in his way to her.

In the town that day he steals armor, proper armor, black as midnight, and it weighs heavy on him beneath the tattered cloak he still wears--- but it fits well, and he feels just a little less like an animal. He steals a lance, too, from the next pack of soldiers he slaughters; he vaguely remembers being good at it, and he proves himself right with the battle after that. It snaps in two in his hands as he fights, and rams both ends into one of the soldiers deep enough that they pin him to the ground, discarding that one and snatching up another. A weapon in his hands gives him another sliver of humanity back, but it’s not enough and he knows it--- nothing will be enough any longer. And that’s just fine with him. No armor or weapon will bring him back from the dead, and that’s--- fine. He doesn’t need to be alive to kill her. This beast is enough.

The ghosts approve of his slaughter, and that is enough. Sometimes he wonders why Dedue is not among them, why he’s never joined them, and...that small part of him buried beneath syrupy thoughts and disjointed memories is glad. Maybe it’s simply because the man never saw himself as worthy of being avenged…? He’s wrong, of course, but--- it doesn’t matter. He still waits for the day his dear friend joins the rest. Him...him and _her_. The professor. He waits for her ghost, too, to join the others. Those pale eyes, the softness of her features, the lips that he thought would never even twitch until he saw them smile that day...somehow those things are still clear in his head. But she too is dead, long dead, and he waits for her to join his ghosts as well. If he had just killed her that day, then...then the professor...it is his own fault. Always his fault. He is always to blame, and he waits for their ghosts to tell him so, as well. Glenn already does, his parents already do, every soldier and commoner he’s slaughtered. It is only a matter of time before Dedue and the professor join them.

But even so, the ghosts bay for blood, for him to atone for his sins against them by spilling more and more of it, and he delivers. 

He risks crossing through towns more often, and no one looks at him. He doesn’t stop or linger, doesn’t talk to anyone, and no one talks to him--- they’re afraid, he feels it in the air, and he doesn’t care anymore. He is something to be afraid of. They are just following their instincts. It is on one of these passing-throughs that he overhears a conversation, just a brief snippet--- how unfortunate it is that the millennium celebration won’t be happening this year, it was supposed to be in a few days, wasn’t it? That nudges at something buried in his memories, and he pauses just for a moment to worry at it like an old scab. The millennium celebration...the monastery--- five years? Has it really been five years? The very idea makes him laugh, short and sharp, and he startles a few people. He shakes his head and hurries on, the thought settling strangely in his stomach enough that he seeks out something to kill as soon as he can, a pack of bandits to tear apart, just to make it go away. But it’s not the ghosts, not the screaming visions of his family, this strange feeling in his chest. He doesn’t know _what_ it is.

He doesn’t notice until he’s walking up the mountains that his steps had changed direction, and he doesn’t realize where he’s going until he sees Garreg Mach come into view. He barks a laugh and shakes his head. Five years...no one will come. If they aren’t all dead, why would they care? It was a childish, stupid promise. Why would anyone keep it? They won’t be here. He’s a beast wandering into a ruin full of nothing but memories and rot. 

He walks through the all but deserted town around the monastery, winter winds biting into his face, and he hears talk of bandits and Imperial scouting units, and his hand wraps tighter around his lance. Something he has found useful, about his tattered cloak, is that the bright blue of it, the Faerghus standard clear and visible...it attracts attention. Frightened townsfolk will always see it, always report it, or the soldiers themselves will see--- and it draws them to him that way like bait to a hook. He knows a patrol follows him into the monastery, and he doesn’t care. Let them. Nothing else is here. Let their blood be spilled in sacrifice to the goddess--- though he doesn’t believe in Her. So perhaps then he will spill it in sacrifice to the ghost that has yet to come to him, the memory of the professor. This is for her, he thinks, as he lets them trail him up the steps of the Goddess Tower. This is for her. He failed her, and she died, and these men bleed today for her. He kicks bodies down the steps, broken and bloody, and stalks through them. This is for her. Their blood spilled in this place, where he had spoken to her that night, when he was young and stupid and pretending to be human, when he had the audacity to think even for a moment he deserved to say stupid things like_ together forever_...for her. For her ghost, not here beside him with the others, but he’s sure it should be, judging like the rest, clamoring loud and fierce in his head with calls for justice. 

He is hurt, though, he realizes, bleeding from a few grazes to the sides and a burn on his shoulder, but it’s nothing, and he slides to the floor of the tower and closes his eye. He can’t remember the last he slept or ate, and he’s dizzy, but--- he still needs to deal with the bandits. He has to kill them all, too, the rats chewing at the remains of this moldering ruin, the dying corse of the town. He has to do that next, but...just for a bit, he decides. His ghosts can allow him to close his eye for...just a moment or two. He’ll get up tomorrow and do that. He promises. Just let him have a second, here in this place where he thinks he might actually be spared a nightmare. He knows he doesn’t deserve that, either, but--- as long as he goes and does what he needs to tomorrow they can’t complain. 

When he opens his eyes to the thin rays of dawn, her ghost is there at last. It stands in the light, boots clicking faintly upon the stone as it approaches, and he stares up at her. Every detail is the same as it was last he recalls her...pale green eyes and hair, face soft and gentle and expressionless yet still with something alive in it...she is somehow a little damp, like it had been raining, and her clothes are in slight disarray, and that is odd, but...but it is a ghost like the rest. It must be. It must be another ghost to join the others that clamor for him now, but they--- they do not acknowledge her, nor does she them. She stops in front of him, and reaches her hand towards him, offering it as if it were something that could save him. But she is a ghost, and even if a miracle were to occur here and she was not...not even she can do something like that. He is dead, a walking corpse, a wild beast. Not even she can...but is she really here? Is this possible?

It _is_ possible. She is here, and alive and breathing, and follows him with only mild protestation to the bandits--- he had expected her to argue, expected her to deny him; of course she would, she only knows the stupid little boy, the dead child from long ago. She would not want to admit that this beast is the only thing left. No one would. No one wants this. He did not expect her to follow him anyway, her eyes firm and expression set. Did not expect her to join him in battle, old memories of long ago stirring as she fought beside him like those faraway days that can never return. 

Neither did he expect the others to come, to truly come, but they arrive in ones and twos. Ashe bursts onto the scene, arrow already nocked, leaping onto a ruined wall to send a volley into the half dozen men on him at once with a shout of the title that shouldn’t be his anymore--- Gilbert is with him, barrelling into an axeman shield-first, crying his name and the professor’s in surprise and what cannot possibly be _relief_\--- and then Annette and Mercedes dash in from another direction, the redhead throwing a blast of magic at the bandits while a soft trickle of magic closes a cut on his cheek, and he _hears_ that familiar voice call out for him to be careful--- whinnies and the sound of hoofbeats echo minutes later, and Sylvain barrels into view on a white stallion, bearing down on a distant mage like a jousting knight with Ingrid behind him upon her winged mare, her javelin pinning the mage’s companion--- and Felix, Felix is there too, sword drawn as he moves like thunder and lightning, eyes never meeting his as he slides into the battle with practiced ease--- they are all here. All of them. All that could come, all those alive, they came. They cared, they remembered the promise, and they have seen the beast wearing the prince’s skin and the dead man he’s become and they stand there looking at him, warmly, relieved, not_ seeing_, not caring what he is--- _why? _

He cannot understand such a thing. It’s stupid. They’re all stupid, idiots, fools. They are nothing to him now, none of them. He is a beast and an animal, and they never were anything to him anyway. Why would they be? He is just a tool for the vengeance of ghosts. He doesn’t need anything else, doesn’t deserve anything else. Why did they come? They shouldn’t have come. Gilbert’s words are meaningless. A king? Fhirdiad? His people? No. That’s pointless, empty. He’s an animal, a boar. The throne is no longer for him. His people? He has no one. Why would they want him? He has no responsibility to them! He has one thing, one goal, one duty--- to kill her. To rip her throat out with his bare hands, to crush her skull and taste her blood. That is all he is to do, all he is here for.

If they wish so badly for him to lead them, then he will, he decides. They will follow him? Then they will follow him to Enbarr. They will ask him what to do? Then he will tell them to stand there as he rips her to pieces. They wish to be used, then he will use them as much as they want. It’s that simple. They mean nothing to him now, never will and never should. So they’re--- they will be used. They’re just means to an end. 

The monastery fills with people and noise and he hates it, he finds--- the sound echoes in his skull and claws at it, and the walls press close and the people press in, and he finds himself in the old chapel, staring at the rubble where the altar once was. It’s quiet here, no one talks in the damn chapel, and the room is large and wide and the windows big enough that it doesn’t feel like it’s suffocating him. He wishes he were back in the forest, more than once, out on a battlefield. The noise there is familiar, comforting, screams and blood and violence a music he knows. Not so here--- here is talk and smiling and people and life and things he cannot--- it is so loud and so much, too many warm bodies and too many voices. And the walls are too tall, the ceilings block the sky...he truly _is_ an animal. And now he is an animal caged. But that is fine. That is just fine. He will stand and he will wait, and then they will tell him where they go next on their way to Enbarr, and he will go and he will shed blood for his ghosts, and the beast will be free. He can tolerate the cage until then.

He knows there are eyes on him, but he doesn’t care, either. Let them watch and think the worst and speak of him in hushed whispers. He doesn’t care. This is what he’s become, let them fear him, think him mad, think him a monster. It’s true, anyway. He finds himself snarling at anyone that comes close, from the professor to Annette to Flayn (when did _she_ get here?), snapping roughly for them to leave, and settles into his cloak (he recalls passing out a moment after that first battle, and...after he’d found the cloak warmer, better sewn, clean and repaired and looking like a real garment, and he will not thank Mercedes, but he knows it was her) to argue with the ghosts. They hate waiting, impatient as they are, and they demand he hurry, go now. He has to tell them over and over to wait, to give him time, he’s trying, but they don’t listen. It hurts, but he keeps telling them so--- he’d promised, he knows, he’s working on it, he’ll do it. His voice to his own ears is a rough snarl, deep and growling and rasping from abuse rather than disuse --- so much time ranting to himself in the woods, so many screams and howls and roars, the damage is done and cannot be undone --- and it is just another mark of what’s changed about him, another mark of a beast, and he doesn’t care. 

Time blurs into itself again, days into nights into weeks, and still he doesn’t feel like moving. Sometimes he does, sometimes he wanders aimlessly at night, a ghost in black and blue, pacing the ruined grounds while no one else is about, not caring where he goes or if he goes anywhere, just moving like a restless beast until he tires and finds himself in the chapel again, where he sits in a pew for a while until he can stand comfortably again. He doesn’t sleep, not really--- nightmares hunt him when he does, and so maybe he finds his eye shutting while he sits once or twice, but never for long. He doesn’t need much sleep anymore, these days, anyway. He’s learned to live on scraps of it, fleeting fragments of rest. Just as he’s learned to live on a roiling stomach and an empty one--- the dining hall in the day is chaos and he’d refuse to go near it even if he bothered to leave the chapel during waking hours, and at night he doesn’t care enough to rifle through the pantry like a thief. Sometimes he does, if his stomach protests enough to make him dizzy on his feet, if just so the idiots who keep trying to speak with him don’t get worse, but half the time food still looks like offal and gore to him, so...he tries when he is able, at least. He needs to be alive to kill her, after all. That hasn’t changed even if he is no longer in the wilds hunting and preying on wild animals and fallen fruit. So what if he has to sneak bits of dried beef or--- whatever he grabs, he never looks too close--- now? It’s just a different sort of hunting. And it keeps him alive, so he doesn’t care, even if some still makes him sick. He’s used to that by now, it’s almost stranger when it doesn’t.

It feels as if the time in the chapel is a long and unbroken string of--- standing there, occasionally broken up by his wanderings and trips to eat something, and it is only interrupted when he is asked to fight. That is good--- he can do that, and he _must_ do that. Shed blood for his ghosts, and every step is another step closer to her. That’s all that matters. He fights with ferocity, vicious and wild, and now that it is real battles, real fights, not simply slaughters in the woods, he finds it so much--- _more_. The enemy has beasts for him, more variety in their numbers and their monstrosities that tower over even him (for he has grown, he realizes, realized when he noticed he towered over everyone else by a far larger amount than he remembered), and it sends a thrill through his blood that bubbles laughter to his lips, wild and mad, and he throws himself into the fight. He feels alive, clear and aware and present, when he fights now, and his lance doesn’t falter. He ignores the professor behind him or beside him, snaps at anyone who tries to interrupt him or heal him --- it’s a wasted effort, why bother, he just needs to be alive, not well --- but he fights and he feels...different, when he does. Another strange feeling in his stomach he cannot name. But it is more than the red-hot burning rage. He ignores it, though, because it is not important. It cannot be. All that matters is he tears these monsters apart for their crimes, and atone for his own in the process.

They are all monsters, all of them. He knows that. The sheer fact that they shed blood makes them so. It is hypocritical to pretend to be anything more than that when you kill. It makes him sick. At least he has the decency to show the world what he is! Why does it matter if he kills a few more beasts? But the professor--- it doesn’t matter, the man still dies. Quick or slow, he’s dead.

It is defending the monastery, then it is Ailell --- Rodrigue, then, another voice to ignore, but that moment Areadbhar settles warm into his hands is a moment it all falls away, even the ghosts, and he is a small child staring up wide eyed at the bone white lance in his father’s hands, wondering, awed and wishing one day that he could hold it too; but it is a moment and then he is a beast again, a beast with a new weapon, one that will never break --- and then it is Myrddin. 

And at Myrddin, another ghost returns to him alive. He does not see him arrive, does not hear the shouts and cries of relief and delight. He is locked in battle with a Beast, and it has clamped its jaws down on his arm, and he is clawing at its face and bellowing rage, and then someone else is there, and the thing’s jaws tear apart like paper and he falls to a knee, and then strong arms lift him upright and and a soft and warm voice speaks his title, and he looks to see dark skin and pale hair and deep green eyes--- and again for a moment even the ghosts fall away, and he near to trembles, because Dedue is _alive_. After everything, he came back to him. He came back. He _came back_. The battle continues, it is won, and that strange feeling lingers. Is it Dedue? He doesn’t know. He...doesn’t know what he’s doing, for that brief time after the fight. The professor asks if he regrets killing, this time, and though when he opens his mouth to snap a denial, instead he has no answer, and even the denial he does eventually get out feels strange and forced and unsure. He feels lost and alone and adrift, ghosts terrifyingly silent and--- he is nothing without them, they need to come back, he needs them! He needs their voices, their shouting, their insults and derision, their reminder of why he’s doing this. They are the only reason he is alive and he--- what does he do without them? He is nothing without them, he is--- he is a beast and a monster and he needs his masters to--- he needs them.

There is a girl, briefly, he recalls the girl, small and young and wide-eyed, but those eyes held the same dark hatred in them that his own did, he could see it, and the set of her jaw and the fire in her voice when she said she sought vengeance...he let her come. A kindred spirit, really. A fierce little beast ready to kill her enemy, her prey. He might as well let her.

And then Gronder approaches, and she would be there, his own enemy, and the ghosts return howling and he is satisfied, relieved again. There they were, there they all were. His ghosts, his purpose, his reason for existing. He needs them. Even if...even if that small buried part of him is somehow closer to the surface, and that strange feeling still sits heavy, even if the fighting has cleared his head and somehow the syrup of his thoughts the past years is fading, somehow that clearness lingers a little longer after battles. He needs his ghosts, his reason, because what is he without it? Without them he is just a bloody, filthy beast, a murderer, a monster. No better than the rats he’s slaughtered. If he has no ghosts, no reason, no purpose for the killing, then he is better off dead now. It’s that simple. Without them then--- it means nothing. Without them there is no point to his life. Either he fights for his ghosts, gives justice to the dead, or--- or--- he doesn’t know. He has never known anything but this. There is nothing else but this.

But then she escapes, slips out of his fingers before he can get what he wants. But then as he snarls at the professor, at Rodrigue, to get out of his way so he can go after her--- he has to he has to he needs to, before she slips his noose, he will chase her to Enbarr in the rain if he must, she must die _she must die_\--- he hears a noise, sees Rodrigue’s eyes flicker to behind him, and then a sharp short blade slides into his back and he chokes, dropping to a knee. That little girl’s voice shrills behind him in the madness of fury and loathing, and--- he was her monster, then? Something comes back to him, then, an old memory, something he’d said once...everyone he’s killed, a person just like him. Someone’s father, son, husband, lover..._brother_...all people just like him, with lives, loved ones...guilt rises up in his chest to choke him, close his throat, and he doesn’t move. Listens to her howl her pain to the sky, knows she is lifting the knife again, and he closes his eye and waits. 

For all that he had been terrified when the ghosts left him, now he doesn’t want them. This is what he’s done. This is what he’s done--- even _with_ them he is no better than the monsters he’s slaughtered. No, he’s worse. So much worse. He’s slaughtered so many, men, women, children, he’s stained himself crimson thousands of times over...all for the ghosts, but--- but he’s killed. He’s killed so many, how could he have ever...he had thought he’d thrown away doubt long ago, thrown away all of these stupid sentiments...but he hasn’t, he finds, suddenly, all at once. Was this that strange feeling that haunted him? Guilt and regret? Well...it doesn’t matter. She’s about to kill him, and the world will be less one monster and all the better for it. They’ll kill her without him, he’s sure. It...is better this way.

Only--- only Rodrigue shouts his name, and the knife falls, and blood sprays his face that isn’t his own, and the world stops. The world stops and everything falls away and he screams, and it is not the howl of a monster but the wail of a child. He wails and clutches at the man who had been a second father to him, heedless of the blood, unaware of the tears that stream down his face (when was the last time he’d cried?), begging him--- no, not him too, he doesn’t want another ghost, he cannot--- why would he do this? Why does everyone do this? He doesn’t want anyone to do this! If he is to die then let him die, damn it! He cannot bear all these lives thrown away for his sake when he doesn’t deserve it and never has! It is always his fault, always his doing, they are all--- he has killed them all, always! All those who love him have always died in his name and it is as though he has killed them himself, and this constant slaughter at his hands is the only atonement they demand, even as it buries him deeper in sin and guilt and shame. His parents, Glenn, and now Rodrigue--- no more, no more, he cannot bear it any longer!

But...but Rodrigue brushes a warm and shaking hand against his cheek, holding it there as it trembles, and...and what he says, it--- it makes no sense. Dying...dying for what they believed in? Not for him? He can’t understand any of it. He cannot grasp what he says--- that his life is his own, that it doesn’t belong to anyone else, living or dead. That isn’t true...that has never been true. His life has always belonged to the dead. Always. He has no right to his own life, he never has. How can it be his? What is he to do with it, if it is? This is not a life that means anything, just a blood-soaked beast...who would want this life? And to live for what he believes in? He doesn’t know any of that. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know, how can he say such things? He goes still in his arms, then, and his hand falls away, and--- he cannot remember how he gets back to the monastery. But it is dark, and it is pouring rain, and--- and he will go to Enbarr.

He will go to Enbarr and he will die getting there, and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care, he doesn’t care, he doesn’t want to live anymore. The ghosts that howl at him can rot for all he cares. Too many have died for him, too many have died believing in things that put them between him and a blade, too many have--- he doesn’t want to cause anyone else to die, and if just his very existence means that might happen then he doesn’t want it. All he’s done with his search for vengeance is bring death to others, become a horrid murderous beast slaughtering thousands and creating more people just like him. Killed sons and daughters, husbands and fathers, brothers and sisters--- so many dead, so many dead, and the ghosts were the only thing keeping that weight away, but it is here now, and it is crushing him, suffocating him, and if the only way out of it is to throw himself onto every soldier from here to Enbarr until he lies bleeding in the mud then that’s exactly what he intends to do.

But the professor stands there, in the pouring rain, waiting for him, watching him with those pale green eyes. She knows what he intends, she bars his way. She has always been so kind, so patient, and he cannot stand it. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t--- he cannot listen to her, how she seems to know what he thinks, the way she looks at him, soft and gentle and understanding. It makes him want to be sick. She doesn’t--- she cannot truly understand, though, no matter how alike they might be. She has never carried this weight, the burdens of the dead, their need for vengeance, for justice. She never had the ghosts he does, she cannot truly ever know how he feels. He can’t stop now, this is the only path he’s ever had and he has to follow it to its end, and its end now is him bleeding out on the road to Enbarr. He doesn’t care, not anymore. Not...not that he ever did.

But she tells him he’s wrong. So soft, so certain, like she were telling him the color of the sky. But she is the one who’s wrong! She--- must be. He doesn’t know anything else but this, no matter what she says. The dead won’t let him go, they’ll never let him go, so this is the only way. It has always been the only way. 

And yet...and yet...she’s so certain. So sure. She has always...she has always been there, for him and everyone else. And that strange feeling is back, one he cannot name even now--- is it regret, is it guilt? No, he knows those now, feels their weight crushing against his back, and this is not it. He doesn’t know what it is. But--- but he begs her all the same. He needs answers. He needs someone to tell him what to do. He has nothing if he stops listening to the ghosts. They have been the only reason he has not killed himself for the past nine years, them and their quest for vengeance. If he doesn’t have them...if he doesn’t have this...then he might as well be dead. Especially now that it’s made him a hideous monster. He’s too bloodstained, too monstrous, for anything else. He’s dug himself to the bottom, and done it willingly, and--- and she insists there is a way out? Where, then? What, then, can he do? Should he do? Is there truly something else out there? Is there truly a way, another way to save them, to appease them? 

She tells him he must forgive himself, and the idea of that--- no. That’s impossible. Forgive himself? For everything he’s done? All the blood he’s shed? No. And even...even if...even if he does, what then? He has already told her, he has nothing, is nothing, without this quest for vengeance! If he forgives himself...if he truly tries to move on without these ghosts...then what? He has never--- he doesn’t know anything about himself. Not really. Not without that in his life. His hopes, dreams, wishes...he’s never allowed himself any. Not...not truly. He doesn’t deserve them. How can he find anything at all to live for if he cannot live for the dead?

_Live for what you believe in, _she says simply, the same words from Rodrigue’s mouth, and this time they burn into his very soul, even if he cannot begin to understand them. He can’t--- how would that be possible, for something like him. A monster, a beast, stained with blood. How can he begin to have that right? That right to live for himself, to live for what he wants...how can he deserve that? He doesn’t! He _doesn't._ He’s a monster, he’s a monster, he’s made himself a monster, a beast, a wild boar...animals have no rights. No dreams. No wishes. Nothing to believe in. How is it possible for him to have that right? This foolish empty corpse that he is, the thing who shouldn’t even have survived that day nine years ago, the thing who lived and lived for the dead, became a murderer for their sake...does he have the right to be something else, something more?

The look in her eyes as he begs her for answers is so painfully sad, and he recalls when there was nothing in those eyes, when they were empty and soulless and inscrutable. She watches him a long moment, then, and then, without words, she holds her hand out to him. She reaches for him, offers her warmth, friendship--- something without a name. And it is then he recognizes the thing in his chest, the strange feeling that has kept bubbling up every so often since the moment he was first reminded of that five-year-old promise: _hope_.

He remembers, then, something he had said to her that night...that the goddess would never reach out to anyone in need. She had certainly never done so for him. And yet here and now, the professor stands before him, and it is her that reaches out. Too overwhelmed for thought, he lifts his hand, placing it in hers, and her small fingers wrap tight around it. Was her hand always so warm? So comforting? He cannot think on anything anymore, and he hardly registers sagging against her, tears falling as he starts again to sob, nor does he register small, strong arms around him, holding him as he weeps into her shoulder. It is pouring, but neither of them seem to notice; it is all he can do to hold her in turn as he shakes, sobbing until he feels as if he has scraped everything out of himself, scraped himself raw and empty, and…it is nice. He is still overwhelmed, still cannot think, but...his mind is clearer. His thoughts are no longer syrup, memories are easier to reach for. He is so tired, suddenly, exhausted down to his marrow, and he allows her to lead him wherever she will. 

He does not quite expect her to lead him stubbornly to the baths, though, and a spark of old childish embarrassment flickers. Suddenly he finds...he _does_ care. He does care, and his face colors like the boy he was once, fidgeting helplessly as he is pinned by her expectant gaze. He knows he still reeks, still smells of five years of filth and blood and too much else to name--- why care to bathe? Why bother so long as injuries stay clean, it doesn’t matter what he looks like...but now it does, he realizes. All those things he had stopped caring about...suddenly feel important again. Or at least…more so. Even if the desire to be clean again has hit him, it is no less difficult to make it happen. At least the professor lingers, gives him the privacy to pry off his armor and peel his filthy tunic and pants off, but then turns back once he hits the hot water (oh goddess, he thinks, unable to catch the helpless, undignified moan that escapes him when he sinks into the tub, how had he ever forgotten how nice this was?) and moves to help him. It stings, it does, as she scrubs him raw, but he can see flesh beneath the filth, see his skin clear for the first time, and it is...strange. But not a bad sort of strange.

His flush deepens in shame, however, as her soft but callused fingers dance along the countless scars on his body, but she shakes her head. She has scars too, he realizes for the first time. He can see them in the spaces between her armor, on her arms and chest and stomach where flesh shows through. It should not surprise him, for she was a mercenary once, but even so...there is something revelatory about it, and it silences the shame for a while.

She leaves him a moment to sit and doze, and returns with clean clothes, giving him time to dry off and put them on. It is...he has to stand there and marvel at the feeling of it, soft warm cotton against clean skin, marvel at how he no longer smells of blood and dirt and sweat and filth...he brings a hand to his hair and though it is still tangled it is clean as well, and soft again, and all this sensation is so new, so bewildering, and--- though part of him still screams he doesn’t deserve this, that small part of him that had been stifled for so long basks in these small things, these little luxuries that he had not allowed himself, but that were...things most everyone did as a matter of course. Humans were clean, humans had soft clothes, humans smelled nice. And--- and he was human. He felt almost human, right now, and he lets her carry his armor and cloak out of the baths, the rain stopped as she takes his hand again to lead him gently to her room. 

The boy he had been once --- the boy who, he thinks in shock, might not be dead after all, might be that small voice that has grown louder the past hour or two, might be the voice that hopes, that revels in how soft and clean and human he feels --- would have been embarrassed to walk into her room, but now he hardly registers, tired and overwhelmed as he is, and he allows her to pull him to sit beside her on the bed. He doesn’t remember, later, what they talk about, but she shifts to start brushing out the tangles from his hair, and--- and he melts into it, melts into the soft touches, the gentle contact, the human presence that he has spent so long denying himself...and he knows nothing at all the rest of the night. The first dreamless slumber he’s had in five years, perhaps more.

He wakes curled on her bed, the sun streaming in through the window, and he does not want to get up. Not...not for the usual reasons, though--- no, he realizes. It is simply that he is warm, and comfortable, and drowsy, and well-rested for the first time in years, and he doesn’t want to move. So he doesn’t, he decides selfishly, and deciding something so ridiculously self-indulgent feels so freeing that he nearly laughs aloud. He shifts to bury his face in the pillow (belatedly realizing it is _her_ pillow, and smells like her, and his cheeks color and he decides not to think about that) and close his eye again, and though he doesn’t fall back asleep, he is able to think. Clearly, lucidly, rested and relaxed for...for the first time in--- he cannot remember. 

The pain is still there, he finds, the guilt and regret and shame, the sorrow and the anger. All of it is there, still sitting like a heavy knot in his chest. But it is not...it is not the all-consuming beast that it once was. No, it sits smaller, somehow. Heavy and painful and hard to bear, perhaps, but it is...small enough now that he can see around it. How strange, he thinks, and probes this new space in his thoughts, in his heart. There is so much there now! The dead linger, still, and he knows they always will, he is not so--- not so fool to think he has escaped them with one long cry and a good night’s sleep, or that he ever will. But they too are diminished, slightly. Like--- like somehow in this soft light of morning...they are as monsters under his bed when he was a child, less frightening, easier to fight back. Still there, always there, but...he can see himself again past them! 

But that leaves the question of...who is he? Who does he see? Who is Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd? He has not known the answer to that for a long, long time. The ghosts have long had him, the animal he had become for them had crushed any answer to that in its iron grip. He doesn’t know who he is, what he wants. But now, he supposes, is as good a time as any to figure it out. He’ll have to, if he wants to...if he wants to do what they told him. If he wants to live for what he believes, he has to...remember what he believes in.

He doesn’t think he’ll find the answer if he searches, so he lets out a soft breath and settles slightly and lets it come to him. Memories slip in--- Dedue. Duscur, the people. His promise to his friend. The slums, the horror that had settled into his bones at the state of them. The weak and afraid, the people mowed down in this foolish war. He had killed for them, slaughtered for them, because the ghosts had desired it, but was that all it had been? He remembers speaking with the professor so long ago, wondering what point there was in lofty ideals when it simply led to people dying, the weak being mowed down...teaching orphans to fight, a brief moment even as an animal, not long ago, where one had not been scared of him, and he had ruffled his hair, something warm shooting through him. He remembers a child’s desire to protect, a father holding him up and letting him stand on the balcony, the pair of them looking out over Fhirdiad together, and the awe he felt then, knowing that the city below would one day be his to rule, and all the people there would rely on him to keep them safe.

He has...failed them so miserably, hasn’t he? It pulls his mood down sharply for a moment, but in that moment it buoys again, because there is his answer, isn’t it? If he is to...be a monster, still, if that is something he will never change, no matter how human he feels at the moment, then...can he not be a monster for the sake of those living? There are things he’s promised to do. He promised Dedue he would give his people their lives back. He promised himself, as a child, to be a good king, protect his people. There are things...things he dreamed of, as a little boy, a boy playing knights with his friends, a boy playing Loog and Kyphon with his _best_ friend, wishing to be as good and strong and noble as them. How had he forgotten them all? He sits up, at that, shaking his head. There is so much to do, he realizes. He has so much to do. And it is--- it is exciting. It is hope, again, it is the realization that he...that he has something to live for. Something he believes in. Something he...something he chooses to do because he and he alones wants to do it. There are still people alive who need him, people alive who have remained at his side even while he snarled and spat and pushed them away. His friends. His family. They need him. They stayed with him all this time, they didn’t leave. Not even Felix left him! He...he needs to apologize, he realizes, and nearly tumbles out of bed in his haste to grab his armor where it’s been left for him on the desk. He needs to apologize!

His armor, he realizes as he straps it on, has been cleaned thoroughly as well while he slept. Cleaned and repaired, and his cloak washed and the rips in it sewn up. He runs a finger over some stitching, a discolored patch that had been put over a large tear...and that is what he is, isn’t it? What he’s doing. He and this cloak both are torn up and broken, and...and the damage done is permanent. Will always be there. Always be visible. They’ll never be what they were, cannot be what they were. But...even so, like the cloak has been patched with something else, he can...do the same with his own broken soul, can’t he? Patch himself up, slowly and surely. Never the same, but...he is not the beast he was for so long. Nor is he the boy he’d been before that, but...something else. Maybe both. He doesn’t know yet.

He knows it won’t be easy. He knows it won’t be quick--- he doesn’t doubt that in the days to come he’ll slide right back into the worst of it. There will be days when food still looks like guts and offal and he cannot touch it. There will be days again where the ghosts come for him. There will be days when he hates himself enough that it is tempting to slit his own throat and end it all right there. But right in this moment, as he settles the cloak around his shoulders, he can see that there will be days that are better than that. Even if he goes to his grave still with all this pain and all these ghosts...there will be days where he is okay, where he feels like he maybe does deserve the life has, where he can live with what he is now, a beast and human both. Days like today, where he...where he remembers what hope feels like, and where he thinks that he might like to see tomorrow. Where he wants nothing more than to see his friends, and listen to them laugh and talk, and maybe it will make him smile again. Because somehow he knows that even if he doesn’t think they should, they will forgive him when he apologizes, and...that they love him. 

The professor turns up then, carrying a tray of breakfast, and she stops in the doorway to stare at him, and the smile that slips onto her face is--- _mesmerizing_, he remembers he’d called it back then, and it is no less so now. She smiles at him and he feels like the sun has gotten brighter, and he remembers that long-ago boy’s wish and smiles back, the unfamiliar motion tugging oddly at his face, yet--- yet it is welcome. She sits with him, then, makes sure he eats--- it doesn’t make him feel sick, what she brings, and that just makes him...it’s something else to appreciate. She brews them a pot of tea, too, and it has been so very long since she’s shared a cup of tea with him that he almost cries again, but he holds that back for later, because he knows he’ll cry trying to get out his apology to the others, and he doesn’t want to spend _all_ day in tears. Even so...even so. 

Today is a new day, a new start. He is choosing today to start living, living for himself, relearning who he is and what he wants, what he believes in...choosing today to start moving forward on his own, for himself, not for the dead. They still linger at his heels, the pain and guilt still sits heavy on his shoulders, the beast still growls quietly in his chest, and none of it will ever leave him...but it will get easier to carry. Today he is able to be certain of that. 

And...today he can be sure of one thing more: he _does_ care. He has always cared. He will always care, about everything, about the ones he loves, about his people, living and dead.

And if he _is_ a monster, a wild boar, then...that is fine. That is alright. Because if he is a beast, then that beast will be one who fights for what he believes in.

**Author's Note:**

> Me: Oh I want to write some PAIN  
Me: spends the better part of 14 hours writing this monster, oops
> 
> Then again, with my formative RP/writing experience being in the Metal Gear Solid fandom (aka "Everyone And Their Robot Dog Has Severe PTSD And Trauma" the video game series), it was only a matter of time before my extensive research on this stuff spilled over onto my baby boy Dimitri. I fell in love with him before I even checked 3H out and then oops, he's my son, time to join his Protection Squad. He's so well written and I love exploring this poor boy's fall and climb back out. Those five years we know very little about, it hurts so much to think about them, but at the same time to look at how he changed during them...there's a lot to infer and a lot to explore (and it's all painful, ow). But really seeing him choose to live and start healing is so inspiring and I Love It, and I love even more how they never act as if he's cured and back to 'normal', but acknowledge he's changed, and he'll always have the trauma, it's just a matter of learning how to live with it. /chef's kiss that's good writing
> 
> (And, really, as someone with her own mental illnesses, I feel him. Showering Is Hard, Man.)


End file.
